2023

Best LPs 2023Music:
Kosmischer Laufer – Volume 5 LP (UCR)
Soia, Julien Sénélas, Jérôme Vassereau – In C for 11 Oscillators and 53 Forms LP (unjenesaisquoi)
Cate Brooks – Tapeworks DL (Cafe Kaput)
Memorials – Music For Film: Tramps! LP (State 51 Conspiracy)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – PetroDragonic Apocalypse… LP (Album of the year)
Field Lines Cartographer – Moonbuilding Sessions LP (CiS Subscription Library)
Brian Eno – The Lighthouse radio station (Sonos) (most listened to)
Niholoxica – Source of Denial LP (Crammed Discs)
SareemOne – Olivine Window
Coast Contra – Breathe & Stop Freestyle/Never Freestyle/Scenario Freestyle
Move78 – Grains LP
Heiroglyphic Being – The Moon Dance LP (Apnea)
Raj Pannu – Past Crimes EP 12″ (To Pikap Records)
Gordon Chapman-Fox – The Nine Travellers LP (Castles In Space Subscription Library)

Podcasts:
Oh God What Now?
Cartoonist Kayfabe
Jonny Trunk’s Patreon Show
What Goes Around
The Bunker
The Bureau of Lost Culture
Not A Diving Podcast with Scuba

Best of Live events 2023-2
Gigs / Events:
Art of Noise @Jazz Café, London
The Light Surgeons – SuperEverything launch @iklectik, London
Quadraphon debut @Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate
Beyond The Streets exhibition @Saatchi gallery, London
Pop Up Subculture festival, Stroud
Holotronica, @IMAX Bristol
Sunroof / Finlay Shakespeare @iklectik, London
0282 Club, the library, Burnley
Paul Cousins @iklectik, London
The Light Surgeons – The Consensual Hallucination @iklectik, London
Memorials at the State 51 Summer Psych party @State 51, London
Queens of the Stone Age @Glastonbury
FogFest2 @iklectik, London
JG Thirlwell & Emsemble @Bush Hall, London
The Book & Record Bar 10th anniversary party, London
Machina Bristronica, Bristol
Visiting Peel Acres with Eilon Paz of Dust & Grooves
Nihiloxia @the Jazz Cafe, London
NEXT Festival, Bratislava, Slovakia

Best design 2023
Design / Packaging:
Yves Malone – A Hello To A Goodbye LP (Castles In Space)
Drumetrics – Phuzzle (Drumetrics)
Waclaw Zimpel – Train Spotter LP (State 51)
David Boulter – Factory 3″ CD (Clay Pipe Music)
Fluctuosa – Wetware EP 12″ (Analogical Force)
Fluxus – Orbit & Shine LP (Castles In Space)
Floating Points – Birth4000 12″ (Ninja Tune)
Cate Brooks – Easel Studies LP + badge (Clay Pipe Music)
Brian Eno – Top Boy OST CD (Beatink)

Artists:
Kallamity
Soda
Nick Taylor (Spectral Studio)
Louise Mason
Francis Castle (Clay Pipe)
Tradd Moore
KO_Computer
Kishi Omori
Autone1
Mike Mignola
Geometric Love
Anna Readman
Zoe Thorogood
Colin & Maria @ Time Released Sound

Best books 2023
Books / Magazines / Comics:
Medical Grade Music – Steve Davis & Kavis Torabi (White Rabbit)
Doctor Strange – Fall Sunrise – Tradd & Heather Moore (Marvel)
Tales To Enlighten – The New Testament – Matt King and James Edward Clark
Beyond The Streets exhibition book
Pop – Milton Glaser (Phaidon)
Kevin O’Neill Apex Edition (2000AD)
Mark Stafford – Salmonella Smorgasbord (Soaring Penguin Press)
Savage Impressions – Bruce Lichen (Independent Project Records)
Hexagon Bridge – Richard Blake (Image)
Monica – Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics)
Acid Valley – Luke Insect
Petrol Head – Rob Williams & Pye Parr (Image)
Lawless – Dan Abnett & Phil Winslade (Rebellion)
Giant Robot Hellboy – Mignola/Fegredo (Dark Horse)
Facelss & The Family – Matt Lesniewski (Oni Press)

Film:
Barbie
Squaring The Circle : The Story of Hipgnosis

What Have I done 2023
Another year over and what have I done?
Designed a retro jungle cover for District 1727 release Rinse Out The Raw Steel
Opened for The Art of Noise two nights running at the Jazz Cafe
Designed The Home Current & Peter Wix and UNE CDs for Spun Out Of Control
Performed at Candlemas with Julian Hand, Heena Song, Paul Naudin and Whyte Light Visuals
Started working with visual artist PuttyRubber with my Quadraphon turntable at live gigs
Designed the Stasis 12″‘Quondam Sequences’ for De:tuned
Edited a short video for Holotronica after their Bristol event (not sure this ever got broadcast/finished actually)
Restarted my Infinite Illectrik label with 7 monthly releases from May
Mixed two new volumes of The Funky Eno with selections provided by Nohbodhi
Gave talks about Wheels of Light in Stroud and Brighton
Collaborated with Graham Dunning live with visuals by PuttyRubber and Chromatech for FogFest2
Appeared on the 45 Live and What Goes Around podcasts
Wrote the theme for the new Why? podcast
Remade and remixed Amon Tobin’s Permutation LP artwork for the 25th reissue
Continued the weekly Mixcloud Select series of archive mix uploads
Designed and illustrated Wonders of the Undersea World LP for Trunk Records including a sheet of stickers to make your own cover design.
Designed zoetropes for T Rex, Donna Summer, Dr Who, Lily Allen and Steps(!)
Designed the Pulse Five EP, poster and postcards for FSOL, working with Jonas Ranson again on the screenprint
Designed the De:tuned 15 logo and T-shirt for the label’s fifteenth year in 2024
Designed the Clerkenwell Kid Junkyard Melodies album + ephemera and 3″ Xmas Winter Warmers companion CD for Stephen Coates/The Real Tuesday Weld
Designed the A’bear album sleeve for Castles In Space
Contributed vintage graffiti photos to the second Old So Kool book about the UK graf scene in the 80s
Ongoing research into at least three other book projects…

RIP:
Alan Rankin, Jeff Beck, David Crosby, Burt Bacharach, Raquel Welch, Alain Goraguer, Lee Purkis aka In Sync, Paul O’Grady, Al Jaffee, Jah Shaka, Mary Quant, Mark Stewart, Frank Kozik, Andy Rourke, Peter Jones (Colourscape designer), Martin Amis, Kenneth Anger, Tina Turner, Astrud Gilberto, John Romita Snr, Glenda Jackson, Jane Birkin, Paul Rubens, Jamie Reid, Michael Parkinson, David McCallum, Mark the 45 King, Benjamin Zephaniah, Ian Gibson,

Looking forward 2024
Looking forward to:
Candlemas II
Gary Hustwit’s Eno film
The Time Released Sound Book – A Decade of Handmade Music Packaging
Furiosa – A Mad Max Saga
The Hoppy documentary
Richard Norris’ autobiography, Strange Things Are Happening
Sophia Satchell-Baeza’s ‘Sensuous Laboratories’ book
The The’s new tour
Doug Shipton’s new Fundamental Frequencies label
More collaborations

Christmas Collector Countdown 2023 #12: Anna Readman comics

AR comics
A daily post throughout December of records, CDs, books, comics or other ephemera that I’ve bought or been given recently from independent artists, labels or publishers who would welcome your support.

#12. Anna Readman comics
I discovered Anna’s autobiographical comics amongst the small press section at Gosh Comics (the best selection in London) and was delighted when she recently won the Observer/Faber’s best graphic short story prize – one to watch.

https://annareadman.bigcartel.com/

www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/05/anna-readman-winner-observer-faber-graphic-short-story-prize-2023-dancing-queen
https://goshlondon.com/small-press/

AR 1
AR 2
AR 3
AR 4
AR 5
AR 7
AR 8
AR 9

Christmas Collector Countdown 2023 #8: The Luvmenauts – In Space LP + comic
 / DL

Luvmenauts LP comic
A daily post throughout December of records, CDs, books, comics or other ephemera that I’ve bought or been given recently from independent artists, labels or publishers who would welcome your support. 
Buy links in bio

#8. The Luvmenauts – In Space LP + comic
 / DL
Fuzz drums and electronics with an outer space theme – check,
Luke Insect-designed sleeve – check,
Accompanying comic illustrated by Moon Toboggan – check.
No-brainer
https://theluvmenauts.bandcamp.com/album/in-space
https://dorightmusic.bandcamp.com/
https://www.moontoboggan.com/art
https://michaelmcglennon.bandcamp.com/merch

Luvmenauts LP comic back
Luvmenauts LP back
Luvmenauts comic 1
Luvmenauts comic 2
Luvmenauts comic 3
Luvmenauts comic 4
Luvmenauts comic 5
Luvmenauts comic 6
Luvmenauts comic 7

Oddities: Desktop Image dump

Snapinsta.app_339813615_751759136570533_5852692975519633638_n_1080
Wheeling around the internet (as I do) you pick up all sorts of interesting things, here are some that have been cluttering up the desktop with nowhere to go this month. Above is a promo badge – or button as they call them in the States – for the opening of The Kaleidoscope club in 1967, apparently the Grateful Dead played – taken from a RockPosters.com post.

Screenshot 2023-04-19 at 17.55.12
The cover of the Sexedelic LP, most of which became one half of the Vampyros Lesbos Psychedelic Dance Party compilation on Crippled Dick Hot Wax. Despite owning said comp since the 90s I’d never seen this cover.

IT newsagent poster
International Times newsagents poster, sent to me by Drew Mulholland

Robt Williams web

Robert Williams illustrated header card for a bag of weed! Not sure the year but looks 70s.

322348407_5653019971469776_5139949817596955965_n
Gorgeous box design for a Philips projector lens.

Alex Nino Star Reach #6
Original art for an Alex Nino spread from Star Reach magazine no.6 from Heritage Auctions

333007605_5890772451042662_1958479465815223817_n
277922215_4955150297937570_1649735244741703503_n
278626982_7296773740364405_5003328769176560783_n

Beautiful Odyssey computer box design plus computer inside, look at those huge chips! Seen on Facebook Marketplace.

WRNTDP LP4

New Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan LP cover – possibly by Nick Taylor? Out next week…

2022

The main thing I’ve been doing this year is learning new software, lots involving AI algorithms that still seem like some kind of strange magic.


It started last year with the Moises software that can split stereo sound files into individual stems which opens up all sorts of possibilities and continued with NightCafe Creator where you can create incredible images from inputting a line of descriptive text. This has yielded a huge bank of images to draw from, some that have already become record sleeve illustrations (I just didn’t tell anyone). It’s all old hat now because AI art is everywhere on the web with thousands of images flooding our feeds on a daily basis but when I first wrote these words in early 2022 it was extremely addictive, if at an infant stage in its development. Just in the last six months alone AI has taken huge leaps in definition and feels like a giant shift in the art of image-making even if still has trouble with hands, it’s certainly divided people’s opinions.
Another AI app is the Topaz suite of image enhancers, the foremost being Gigapixel AI, the best image enhancer / upscaler I’ve ever seen, this has become part of my daily usage now alongside Photoshop and Indesign as a necessary tool to clean up images along with its Denoiser and Sharpener sister apps.
I (finally) got myself an iPad so that I could learn Procreate and again, a whole new world opens up with the possibilities this incredible app gives you. I never could justify getting a tablet, but seeing one of my sons drawing on his, wanting to go digital with some of my comic-buying and having a decent surface to learn Ninja Jamm on made it a necessary piece of kit. Learning to paint on it with one of my sons was among one of my favourite moments this year.
In the analogue world another revelation was a record cutting process pioneered by Ben Soundhog at Plastidisc where software that can convert an image into a waveform then cuts that image as a playable disc. The possibilities are endless and you can make a record without even playing one note.

QMk3 set up
My own experiments with the refining of my Quadraphon turntable have made for a sleeker, more portable and adaptable design along with the fantastic 4 channel Omnitronic TRM-402 mixer and the Ninja Tune/Erica Synths Zen Delay FX unit. I can make analogue tracks via one deck on the fly and jamming with this set up can yield hours of material, a refreshing new way to make music. Also becoming an author on good old fashioned paper felt pretty good too, I think I might have the book bug now. I hope you all have a Happy New Year and a riproaring 2023…

Music 2022v2

Music:
Clocolan – Empathy Alpha LP (Redpan)
Brian Eno – The Lighthouse (Sonos HD)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Omnium Gatherum LP (Flightless)
Twilight Sequence – Trees in General: and the Larch 12″ (Castles In Space)
WTCHCRFT – Drugs Here 12″ (Balkan Vinyl)
Ghost Power – Ghost Power LP (Duophonic Super 45s)
Dexorcist – Night Watch 12″ (Yellow Machines)
Project Gemini – The Children Of Scorpio LP (Mr Bongo/Garden’s End)
Regal Worm – Worm! LP (Quatermass)
The Advisory Circle – Full Circle LP (Ghost Box)
Fenella – The Metallic Index (Fire Records)
S’Express & Daddy Squad – Music 4 The Mind DL

Podcasts:
The Bureau of Lost Culture (Soho Radio)
Cartoonist Kayfabe (YouTube)
We Buy Records (We Made This)
The Jonny Trunk Podcast (Patreon)
Oh God, What Now? (Podmasters Prod.)
The Tone Generation – Ian Helliwell
Peel Acres – Tom Ravenscroft (BBC Sounds)
The Bunker (Podmasters Prod.)

Events 2022

Gigs / Events:
Lux @ 180 Strand, London
Victor Vasarely – Universe exhibition @ Selfridges, London
Premier of Who Killed The KLF? @ Leake St, London
The Orb play U.F.Orb @ The Fox & Firkin, London
Bring The Paint festival, Leicester
Staying in a restored Futuro House, Somerset
Fogfest @ Iklectik, London
Glissando Guitar Orchestra @ Club-85, Hitchin
Funki Porcini’s Lasarium @ Iklectik, London
Wheels of Light launch event @ Raven Row, London
The Trunk Groovy Record Fayre @ Mildmay Club, London
At Home With The Boyle Family film launch @ Iklectik, London
Magnetic Flow exhibition, @ LaVallée, Brussels

Design 2022

Design / Packaging:
Night Cafe / Midjourney – the most fun/frustrating web AI creation tools
Jed St. Christopher – The Further Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 10″ lathe cut (Buried Treasure) by Nick Taylor
Twilight Sequence – Trees in General: and the Larch 12″ (Castles In Space) by Zeke Clough
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Ominium Gatherum LP by Jason Galea
Sculpture – Malculus / Photo Synth 7″ + zoetrope pack by Rueben Sutherland
The Advisory Circle – Full Circle LP (Ghost Box) by Julian House
Clay Pipe Mini Pipe 3″ CD series by Francis Castle
Monochrome Echo – The City & The Stars LP (Castles In Space) by Nick Taylor
Drumetrics – Phuzzle 10″

Artists incorporating AI into their work:
Ko_Computer
Douggy Pledger
Alex Klim
Will Toulan
Scott Wetterschneider
Stuart Smith
Steve Scott (image below by Steve Scott)

Steve Scott

Books comics 2022

Books / Magazines / Comics:
Grrrl Scouts – Jim Mahfood (Image)
99 Balls Pond Road – Jill Drower (Scrudge Books) – now reprinted in text-only paperback and retitled ‘The Exploding Galaxy: Performance Art, LSD and Bent Coppers in the Sixties Counterculture’ – an absolute must for 60s counter culture historians
Radio Spaceman – Mike Mignola & Greg Hinkle (Dark Horse)
Mental Hygiene – Kate Gibb
A-Z of Record Shop Bags – Jonny Trunk (Fuel)
Mud Sharks – Dave Barbarossa
Good Pop, Bad Pop – Jarvis Cocker (Vintage)
House Music – Andy Votel (The Modernist)
Judge Dredd – Brian Bolland (Apex Edition)
Contemporary Collage magazine (digital)
Defying Gravity – Jordan Mooney w. Cathi Unsworth
The Delaware Road deluxe edition – Alan Gubby, Dolly Dolly (Buried Treasure)
69 Exhibition Road – Dorothy Max Prior (Strange Attractor)
Judge Dredd – Mike McMahon (Apex Edition)
It’s Lonely At The Centre Of The Universe – Zoe Thorogood (Image Comics)
The Black Locomotive – Rian Hughes (Picador)

Film /TV:
The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+)
Get Back (Disney+)
Who Killed The KLF?
Pistol (Disney+)
The Boys (Amazon Prime)
In The Court of the Crimson King (Toby Aimes)

2022 Efforts2

Another year over and what have I done?
Finished The Real Tuesday Weld’s ‘Dreams’ LP/CD and ‘Late Night Reveries’ cassette artwork
Appeared on the Bureau of Lost Culture podcast, 45 Live show, mixed an episode of new online show, Genius & Soul (still not broadcast)
Re-designed an old classic logo for The Herbsmen
Adapted The Designers Republic’s Humanoid artwork for a FSOLDigital CD release
Designed Hawksmoor’s ‘Head Coach’ CD for Spun Out Of Control
Recorded with Dave Barbarossa for a future music project
Finished and published the Wheels of Light book for Four Corners Books with press coverage from The Quietus, Shindig!, The Observer, Velocity Books, Moonbuilding, Electronic Sound, Creative Review and more.
Had a track featured on the Diary of a Madman compilation on Bibliotapes in aid of Ukrainian Red Cross
Refined my Quadraphon turntable into a Mk.3 version
Got featured in the 2000AD Summer Special, music edition, talking about my love of the comic
Made a record by etching a playable image into a disc
Compiled, remixed and edited 30 years worth of games footage for DICE’s anniversary, making an 11 minute version then condensing it into 90 seconds.
Redesigned The Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘Every Day’ LP for the 20th anniversary edition from original design concepts
Designed Stasis, AsOne, Paul ‘Damage’ Bailey and Humanoid 12″s and reinterpreted Mike Dred’s ‘OverMind’ LP art for De:tuned
Also designed the AsOne2 LP for De:tuned
Had a collage featured in Contemporary Collage magazine
Mixed a new religious-themed set for the Tales To Enlighten 2 Kickstarter
Reformatted Dave Barbarossa’s Mud Sharks book for publication.
Interviewed Zoe Lucky Cat Baxter, Andy Votel, Alex Paterson and DJ Format for Dust & Grooves book 2.
Designed The Real Tuesday Weld’s 3″ CD Xmas card.

RIP:
Sidney Poitier, James Mtume, Meatloaf, Barry Cryer, Ian Kennedy, Douglas Trumbull, Bamber Gascoigne, Betty Davis, Jan Pieńkowski, Philip Jeck, Chantal Passamonte, Garry Leach, June Brown, Jordan, David McKee, Klaus Schulze, Neal Adams, George Perez, Vangelis, Rat Records, Alan Grant, Bob Rafelson, Bernard Cribbens, Olivia Newton-John, Lamont Dozier, Raymond Briggs, Queen Elizabeth II, William Klein, Jean-Luc Godard, Ramsey Lewis, Pharoah Sanders, Kim Jung Gi, Robbie Coltrane, Joyce Sims, Keith Levene, Nik Turner, Wilco Johnson, Tom Philips, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Manuel Gottsching, Terry Hall, Martin Duffy, Mike Hodges, Pelé, Vivienne Westwood, Anita Pointer.

Looking forward to:
The Out in 2000AD
Supporting the Art of Noise at the Jazz Cafe on Jan 4th/5th
Conform to Deform – The Weird & Wonderful World of Some Bizarre – Wesley Doyle (Jawbone Press)
The The – 1$ One Vote 7″ (Lazarus)
The conclusion of The Real Tuesday Weld’s Swan Songs trilogy?…
Tales To Enlighten: The New Testament
The Kevin O’Neill Apex Edition (Rebellion)
The return of Rave Wars
Spider-Man – Across The Spider-Verse

The Out 2023

Unpublished Simon Bisley ABC Warriors artwork

Bisley ABC Warriors test 3
Bisley ABC Warriors test 2

Three unpublished pages by Simon Bisley have surfaced on Heritage Auctions, from his first work for 2000 AD – ABC Warriors in 1988 – the one that made his name. From the Heritage site: Inscribed “For Pat Mills” “ABC Warriors” “Simon Bisley’s effort” along the left side margin, it is thought that these pages were a first attempt at the story “The Black Hole”. Although it is unknown exactly what chapter this would have been intended for, Panel 4 suggested the first page of Part 2 from Issue #556. It was created in ink over graphite with white paint highlights on oversized Bristol board. It has an image area of 15.5″ x 18.5″. The board has horizontal creases from being rolled at some point.

Bisley ABC Warriors test
This isn’t the first time that prelim work for the strip has surfaced, several other pages exist and show a still-developing artist finding his feet, as he was doing with the story when it was published.

Bisley ABC Warriors tryout spread

If you read the ABC Warriors story that Bisley debuted on (The Black Hole, that he shared artwork duties with SMS on) you can see a huge progression from the beginning to end as well as his early attempts at painted cover and pin up art. After this of course he went on to paint the Slaine saga, The Horned God, and his place in comic legend was cemented as other artists fell over themselves to copy his style with varying degrees of success.

Rare Bodé on eBay

Gosh Wow! Bode cover
Saw this on eBay last week, a Vaughn Bodé cover I’d not seen before on the front of a convention magazine from St. Louis in 1969, it ended up going for over $70. From another seller but possibly from inside of issue #1 of the same magazine was this 4 page strip entitled The St. Louis Bug.

St. Louis Bug cover
St Louis Bug pg3 4St Louis Bug pg2

Posted in Comics. | No Comments | Tags:

The Groovy Record Fayre 2

GRF Jonny Trunk
The second Groovy Record Fayre, hosted by Jonny Trunk and Ian Shirley, took place on Saturday at the Mildmay Club on Newington Green, N16 and again, it was a blast. Pete Williams and I had a stall again and many friends and faces passed by. It was celeb central at points, from superstar DJs to stand up comedians and supermodel it girls. I missed a chance to chat to Stewart Lee who was looking through the Krautrock box because I was explaining what Go-Go and cut up mixes were to a younger buyer but Lee wasn’t buying anyway.

GRF Pete stall
Pete with our stall, notice my Wheels of Light book placed in prime position bottom left.

GRF Alan Gubby
Pete sleevefaces with Buried Treasure’s Alan Gubby

GRF Andy Higgs
Andy Higgs digs

GRF Mr Thing
Marc Mr Thing journeyed up from Hastings for the day

GRF Paul Putner
Paul Putner bought my book shock!

GRF Pete Karminskys
A right pair of tits, and Martin & James of The Karminsky Experience Inc.

GRF Richard Norris
Richard Norris also picked up my book and Children of the Stones (like everyone else)

GRF Ronan Philippe
Rat Records mini reunion with Ronan and Philippe

GRF SavX
Comix legend Edwin Savage Pencil Pouncey bought six of my underground comix, a true seal of approval.

GRF Simon Tony
Pop quiz winner (later on) Simon Gitter with smooth dancer and pop quiz secret weapon 2 Tone Tony.

GRF Martin Jarvis
Everyone was packed up and out of the hall by 6pm and people disappeared for dinner. Around 7.30 the pop quiz kicked off and 90 minutes later the team Jonny Trunk happened to be on claimed victory to cries of ‘fix!, fix!’. The fact that there was a 10 point Trunk section might have helped. Martin Green and Jarvis took to the stage as tables and chairs were cleared in record time, the glitter ball ignited and the bar besieged. Much drink was drunk and dancing had until 1am with a packed dancefloor and singalongs to Plastic Bertrand, Bowie, The Beatles, Adam & The Ants, The Sweet, Prince, Double Dee & Steinski, Beastie Boys, Sparks, B-52s and so many more.

GRF Party crowd

Meanwhile in the toilets, Alex Chung had other things on her mind…

Alexa whats my best side

No Mixcloud Select archive mix this week – a new one!

TTE 2 cover
Due to being crazily busy this week, not least having to sort a set out for a friend’s wedding on Friday (playing AND taking my decks – this is a real rarity) I’ve not had time to prepare a show this week. But! I did drop a new mix on Sunday for Matt ‘King Megatrip’ King‘s new kickstarter.

Long time listeners to Solid Steel will know the name King Megatrip from back in the 00’s, he was one of the first collectors of old shows online, provided the occasional guest mix and used to send us spoken word samples on CDRs back in the day, culled from old films and records that he would religiously record and edit down. These started as discs with 99 entries as that was the most ‘tracks’ you could fit on a disc and each one had its own cover, track list and number. Slowly the ‘Soundbank’, as it came to be known, grew in size to the point where it was 200 volumes, each track-indexed with the basic premise of the sample and compiled on a DVD. I still use it to this day and Matt has threatened to share a new 200 volume follow up some day.

c22cb5f6-a201-1454-8830-c27442e375ab

He’s been slightly distracted however by his Tales To Enlighten project – the first was a 200 page graphic novel detailing the son of Satan and his robot consort, Manfred’s adventures trying to gain enlightenment. He successfully Kickstarted that last year and it was a blast. Now, the sequel – Tales To Enlighten: The New Testament – is here and it’s a whopping 550 pages with 30 artists and a ton more content. He’s aiming to get $20k which means the whole book will cost just $52 once printed – a bargain – and as of writing he’s already got $17k of it after nearly 2 weeks. Help him out if you want a ton of indie/underground comix full of sex, drugs, violence and blasphemy hitting your doorstep (or just to use as a doorstop) soon. If you fancy pledging then head over to the Kickstarter page, there’s loads of different levels and goodies on offer with extra zines, T-shirts and even original artwork.

To try and help drum up some publicity and as a good excuse to fit a new set of funky religious psychedelia together I constructed Songs of Revelation: Further Religious Rock & Spiritual Spoken Word for him a few weeks back, a follow up to last year’s Songs To Enlighten mix.

Track list:
Reformation – In The Beginning
Otis Skillings – A World Mixed Up
Reformation – Reformation ’71
John E. Schroeder & Richard Koehneke – Doors Are For Locking (excerpt)
Truth of Truths – John The Baptist
The Continental Singers – Step Up, Sit Down
Truth of Truths – The Trial
John Rydgren – Cantata Of New Life (excerpts)
The Crimson Bridge – First Suite by Gary Rand (1st movement Searching For Reality)
W. Cleon Shonsen – The Hippy Psalm (Instant Insanity Drugs excerpt)
John E. Schroeder & Richard Koehneke – The Best Tombs In Life Are Free (excerpt 1)
Kent Schneider – The Church Is Within Us, O Lord
The Crimson Bridge – Birthright
John Rydgren – The Lord Is My Shepherd (New Life spot)
Reformation – Let There Be Light
John E. Schroeder & Richard Koehneke – The Best Tombs In Life Are Free (excerpt 2)
Otis Skillings – Love Can Work A Miracle (edit)
Katarzyna Gartner – Kyrie (excerpt 1 edit)
U.S. Apple Corps – Don’t Do Me Nothing
Peter Link & C.C. Courtney – Deadalus
Katarzyna Gartner – Kyrie (excerpt 2)
The Mission – A Feeling

Tales To Enlighten Kickstarter mix – Songs of Revelation

DJ Food - Songs of Revelation cover
Matt King and James Edward Clark‘s Tales To Enlighten: The New Testament (the follow up to last year’s debut, Tales To Enlighten) went live on Kickstarter on September 1st and has so far racked up over $15k of the $20k needed to print and distribute the 550 page monster they’ve created.
Everybody’s favourite serial killing Satanists are back! A 550-page Occult Anthology featuring 30 amazing indie artists. HELL YEAH! Join their cult and push this huge collection of underground artists and writers into print. Pledge here

c22cb5f6-a201-1454-8830-c27442e375ab

Like last time, Matt aka King Megatrip – long time Solid Steel fan and contributor – asked me to put together a religious-themed mix set to help promote the book and the new set is titled ‘Songs of Revelation’. An hour of Religious Rock and Spiritual Spoken word, largely taken from the 60s and 70s when flower power and rock operas infiltrated the church and was co-opted to spread the word of the Lord. Who says the Devil has all the best tunes? There are also more mixes coming, including one that already dropped from Top The Cat – go to the King Megatrip page to hear more including my previous mix https://megatrip-power-hour.fireside.fm/

Matt King’s Tales To Enlighten: (The New Testament) Kickstarter is go!

TTE 2 cover
You may remember the original Tales To Enlighten comic my friend King Megatrip made with James Edward Clark last year? Well, the sequel Tales To Enlighten: (The New Testament) is launching on Kickstarter today.

Screen Shot 2022-09-01 at 01.19.18
Everybody’s favourite serial killing Satanists are back! A 550-page Occult Anthology featuring 30 amazing indie artists. HELL YEAH! Pledge here

KEV6web

Kickstarter projects are generally quite expensive for what you’re getting, right? Wrong on this count, this book is $52, about £45 but less than 10c a page, sure there’s shipping on top but you’re not going to find many deals like that. The talent on show is international in scope with a few Brits including Shaky Kane and Jason Atomic. There are a load of tiers with extra zines, T-shirt and bookmarks and even original art. I’ve done a little promo mix to try and help Matt (I’m sure he won’t need it) – Tales of Revelation – Further Religious Rock Opera & Spiritual Spoken Word which goes online soon.

KEV5 web

KEV12 web

There’s a great interview with Matt over on Daniel Moler’s Psychonaut Sessions podcast, talking about the books and showing off a ton or art from the new one

AI-generated comics, Dave McKean and Carson Grubaugh

McKean Prompt

“A few weeks ago having digested the implications of image creation AI, I decided I could either retire or respond. Here’s my response; a 96-page book of graphic shorts stories created in 12 days. Available at the end of July.” ~ Dave McKean

I’ve been very interested in, and using, AI-generated images since the turn of the year although I’ve not made a big deal out of it or posted much of the work in the way you’ll be seeing it on social media. It’s a fascinating and extremely powerful way of image creating which throws up all sorts of questions of ownership, copyright infringement and such. It’s a huge deal that will see an obvious visual shift across various mediums and another tool in the box of many creatives.
Rian Hughes and I have been trading thoughts and images on this back and forth and he highlighted another comic that purports to be the first of its kind with imagery generated entirely by AI algorithm by Carson Grubaugh. A four issue book due for release in October this year, ‘Abolition of Man’ was generated by lines taken from the C.S.Lewis book of the same name. It looks like it’s set to be beaten to the punch by McKean and, ironically, many of the images inside bear a strong resemblance to his regular non-AI-generated work.

STL240251

Posted in Art, Comics, Design, Robots. | No Comments | Tags: ,

2000AD Comic Rock Sci-Fi Special

2000ADSS22 cover
Another bucket list item ticked: I’m featured in the 2000adcomic Comic Rock Sci-fi Special this year as it has a music theme. Alongside some esteemed company like Mark Moore, Riz (Neotropic) Maslen, Geoff Barrow, Scott Ian and William Potter (looking forward to his Geezer comic soon). Been a fan since I was 8 years old, still read it every week, they missed a trick by not having the cover tagline ‘Prog Rock’ though.

2000ADSS22 spread 1

2000ADSS22 spread 2

Grant Morrison – In Xanaduum collage comic

Xana pg1
I don’t know if anyone is following Grant Morrison‘s Substack but, amongst the titbits of commentary on past characters he’d written, (Superman, Green Lantern etc. yaaawwn…) he’s been posting bits of a new collage comic he’s creating called ‘In Xanaduum…’. It’s rough and ready but I have an interest in collage and comics so it’s interesting to me, it’s a 24-parter apparently, here are the first 5 pages. There are various tiers you can subscribe to, paying and not paying, these are from the unpaid tier so already out there for all to see, you can see more here, he’s quite prolific.
Xana pg2

Xana pg3

Xana pg4

Xana pg5

He’s also posted a full comic he wrote and drew in his youth for Starblazer which is great to see for its youthful charm. I love the level of detail on this page below.
https---bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com-public-images-a6ad0949-c58d-4dcf-8d8e-02c5d111f0f2_2295x3256

Garry Leach RIP

GL VCs Lest We Forget
Another amazing artist gone, RIP Garry Leach, loved his VCs artwork in 2000AD as well as his Zirk and Miracleman for Warrior, hugely underrated and a lovely guy the couple of times our paths crossed.

GL vcGL Mortis GL VCs 1

Posted in 2000ad, Art, Comics. | No Comments |

Howard The Duck graffiti originals

02 Seen Pjay, 1980

Reading some original Howard The Duck comics the other day I came across the original sources for classic NYC graffiti pieces that have been embedded in my brain since seeing the Subway Art / Spraycan Art books back in the 80’s. The Seen / PJay wholecar piece above is probably the first train I ever saw painted as it was part of a magazine review for the book I discovered on holiday in the summer of 1984. This led me to trying to draw my own designs and eventually seek out the book for the bigger picture. I’d never seen lettering like this but was immediately drawn to it and wanted to know more, from then on I wrote graffiti for the rest of the 80s, only stopping when I moved to London in 1990.

The duck on the right seems to be taken from the panel below on the left from issue 2 of the original 1977 run of Howard The Duck, later adapted with added cigar for the top left corner on certain covers. The hat is missing on the train version, possibly due to space, it’s not an exact copy but this is the nearest image I can find and you try painting something 8 ft high in the dark whilst hanging off a train in the freezing cold and getting it spot on. Seen was a master of characters, using many Marvel, DC, Disney and underground comic creations like Cheech Wizard in his pieces.

HTD issue 2

ClassicSeen HowardThe duck on the left of the car is much closer to the original source and obviously comes from the cover of the Marvel Team Up issue of Spiderman and Howard seen below. Seen recently underwent heart surgery and is currently resting until given the all clear to go back to painting, something he seems to do 24/7, regularly selling canvases and prints out in minutes. I very much hope he makes it through and can carry on where he left off, he’s one of the greats and hugely influential, one of the Godfathers of the whole graffiti scene.

LMarvel Team Up 096-00fc

Another classic featuring Howard was by Lee Quinones and covered a whole basketball court in 1980 with the original being swiped from the cover of HTD #20.web-CooperLeeHandballScreen Shot 2022-03-19 at 23.30.20

2021

Sample City cropAfter ending on a bummer in the final hours of 2020 as MF Doom‘s death emerged on social media, we awoke to the news on January 1st of The KLF re-entering the music industry via Spotify and YouTube with remastered material in the form of the first of five compilations. By Jan 6th though any hopes of a better year were dashed, despite the historic swing for the Democrats in the Senate and Congress, with the scenes at Capitol Hill and 1k daily deaths reported in the UK. No surprises on Trump‘s acquittal after the second impeachment hearing in February either.

Surprise of the year was that the UK’s vaccination programme rolled out fast and with few hitches – amazing what can happen when you don’t pump billions into untested private companies and instead let a trusted national institution handle it. I won’t go on, it was pretty much downhill from there and some of those promised KLF albums are still yet to emerge.

Anyway, as is usual on Dec 31st, here are some favourites from the last 12 months in no particular order. There’s been an avalanche of amazing music and art again this year, some coming out of the lockdown months, let’s hope it continues and the virus eases up in 2022. Please check out and support these artists if you like their work, Bandcamp is an excellent way to put a large chunk of money straight in musicians and label’s pockets and buying a print, T-shirt or piece of merch at a gig really helps too. Even a share or piece of positive feedback on someone’s post can give them a boost to know that people are watching or listening out there and they’re not shouting into the void.

LPs 2021

Music:
Concretism – The Concretism Archive Vol.1 LP (CiS Subs Library)
Steve Roach – Tomorrow LP (Behind The Sky)
Snow Palms – Land Waves LP (Village Green)
Jane Weaver – Flock LP (Fire Records)
Stereolab – Switched On vol.4 LP (Warp/Duophonic)
Robert Fripp – Music for Quiet Moments (DGM)
DJ Format – Devil’s Workshop LP
Trevor Jackson – Underdog 1993-1998 radio mix (NTS)
The Hauntologists – Tales From The Scary Magic Field 7″ (Bandcamp)
Various Artists – BLE-EP 12″ (Yellow Machines)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Butterfly 3000 LP (Flightless)
CAVS – CAVS 12″ (PHC)
Various Artists – Infected Machinery EP 12″ (Downfall Recordings)
The Nevermen – Treat ‘Em Right (Boards of Canada remix) DL (Lex)
Vanishing Twin – Ookii Gekkou LP (Fire Records)
Jay Glass Dubs – Jungle Shuffle 12″ (The Wormhole)
Brian Eno – The Lighthouse (Sonos HD)
Regal Worm – The Hideous Goblink LP (Quatermass)
Ternion Sound – Dovetail (Kursa remix) 12″ (Next Level)

Podcasts 2021

Podcasts:
Chris Atkins – A Bit of a Stretch (Apple podcasts)
The Alexei Sayle Podcast
Martyn Ware – Electronically Yours
Ed Piskor / Jim Rugg – Cartoonist Kayfabe (YouTube)
Stephen Coates – The Bureau of Lost Culture
We Buy Records (Apple podcasts)
Matt Black – Pirate TV (Twitch/FB/YouTube)
The Bunker/Culture Bunker (Acast)
The Adam Buxton Podcast (Acast)

Events 2021

Gigs / Events:
Vanishing Twin – Pensiero Magico live stream Jan 20th
Alice In Wonderland @ The V&A Museum, London
Savage Pencil @ OrbitalSpace, London
Eno @ Paul Stolper Gallery, London
The Light Surgeons ‘Atemporal’ @ Iklectik, London
Funki Porcini @ Common Ground, Coventry
The The’s Comeback Special premier @ Troxy Cinema, London
Jonny Trunk’s Groovy Record Fayre @ Mildmay Club, London
Vanishing Twin @ Kings Place, London
Levitation Festival, @ Flowergate Hall, Whitby
People Like Us – Gone, Gone Beyond @The Pit Theatre, Barbican, London
Pye Corner Audio @ State 51, London
Anicka Yi – Aerobes @ Tate Modern, London

Cover Designs 2021.2

Design / Packaging:
Hattie Cooke – The Sleepers LP (Spun Out of Control) by Eric Adrian Lee
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – live bootlegs series LP (Fuzz Club)
Krashslaughter feat. Phil Most Chill – Rebel Base 7″
Sync 24 – Inside The Microbeat LP (Cultivated Electronics) by Will Barras
Une – Spomenik LP (Spun Out Of Control) by Eric Adrian Lee
Cos – Mix LP (Finders Keepers) by Andy Votel
Castles In Space Subscription Library series LPs (Castles In Space) by Nick Taylor + more
The Third Man Records shop in Soho, London
Pepe Deluxe – The Phantom Cabinet vol.1 LP (Catskills) by Vilunki/James Spectrum
Thundercat – The Golden Age of Apocalypse 10th anniversary edition (Brainfeeder)
The Zen Delay (Ninja Tune / Erica Synths)
Roger Webb – Shadows of Fear 7″ (Trunk) by Julian House
Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra – Stylophonika (Spun Out Of Control) by Eric Adrian Lee
Brian Eno’s turntable

Comics 2021

Books / Magazines / Comics:
Rain Like Hammers – Brandon Graham (Image)
Breaking Open The Head – Daniel Pinchbeck
Bedroom Beats & B-Sides – Laurent Fintoni (Velocity Press)
Decorum – Jonathan Hickman & Mike Huddleston (Image)
Ultramega – James Harren (Skybound/Image)
Anatomie Narrative – Samplerman
The Black Locomotive – Rian Hughes (Picador)
Cruisin’ with the Hound – Spain Rodriguez (Fantagraphics)
Kane & Able – Shaky Kane & Krent Able (Image)
Tales To Enlighten – Matt King & James Edward Clark (Kickstarter)
The Out – Dan Abnett & Mark Harrison (2000AD)
Electronic Sound magazine
99 Balls Pond Road – Julie Drower (Scrudge Books)

Artists 2021
Artists:

Savant
RX Skulls
Pablo Fiasco
Donk
ZombieSqueegee
Karoline Rerrie
.EPOD
FiftySevenDesign
Minty
Stinkfish
Perspicereartist
Tamar Cohen
Hoxxoh
Lovepusher
Artyom Trakhanov
Prentler
Soda
Smitheone
Raymond Lemstra

Film /TV:
Bathtubs Over Broadway (Netflix)
Wandavision (Disney+)
Dead Pixels (Ch 4)
Grayson’s Art Club (Ch 4)
Sisters With Transistors – Lisa Rovener (BFI)
Loki (Disney+)
What We Do In The Shadows Season 3 (BBC2)
Martha: A Picture Story (Projector Films)
Records – Alan Zweig (TVO)
Big Mouth (Adult Swim)
The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+)

Work 2021

Another year over and what have I done?
A second mix of religious rock for Megatrip‘s ‘Tales To Enlighten’ comic kickstarter
Stuck 300 foil covers to 300 LP sleeves for The New Obsolescents album on Castles In Space which ended up selling out in 25 minutes and went for a repress.
Finally finished the design and packaging for The Real Tuesday Weld‘s ‘Blood’ and ‘Tape Dust Memories’ releases, the first in a trilogy as Stephen Coates winds up his recording project.
Released the Celestial Mechanic LP on Utter with music by Saron Hughes and myself and design by Rian Hughes
Appeared on the Big Mouth, We Buy Records, Sleevenote‘s Under The Covers, KTMusic Online and Bureau of Lost Culture podcasts, had guest mixes featured on the Jonny Cuba & Friends and 45 Live shows
Released the Kaleidoscope/Companion reissue 4xLP on Ninja Tune subsidiary Ahead Of Our Time
Designed the Lo Recordings’ 100th edition library album for a limited edition lathe cut LP
Started the Openmindesign Instagram account for current designs and archive ephemera
Continued the DJ Food Mixcloud Select weekly upload series
Saw designs for Steven Rutter, Amon Tobin, Clocolan and Humanoid released on De:tuned, Ninja Tune, FSOL Digital and Castles In Space
Written the forward for a book about light show picture wheels for Four Corners Books
Remixed The The’s ‘Global Eyes’ for The Comeback Special live box set
Designed a Janko Nilovic & Yeti On the Pads 7″ sleeve
Collaborated with Imeus Designs on a second book of Forgotten Graphics Command LP sleeves
Edited hours worth of Pirate TV audio visual broadcasts for Matt Black
Remodelled my Quadraphon turntable for live performance
Oversaw the repressed New Obsolescents LP with screen printed black prism board
Contributed the singles column to MU magazine each issue
Designed a Hey Duggee zoetrope LP for the BBC
Designed a 25th anniversary Stealth T-shirt for 1 of 100
Mixed a preview CD of Touched Music‘s ‘Project OO’‘DJ Food’s Oona Selecta’
Designed a 3rd fold out Xmas card, ‘Solstice Songs for The Real Tuesday Weld
Finished my Cineolascape mix for The The, due for release in 2022

RIP: Phil Spector, Larry King, Ricky Powell, Double K (PUTS), S. Clay Wilson, Chick Corea, Victor G. Ambrus, Frank Thorne, Lou Ottens, Orbital Comics, Malcolm Cecil, Shock G, James Prigoff, Captain Rock, Ken Garland, Eric Carle, Gift of Gab, Peter Zinovieff, Jon Hassell, Peter Rehberg, Chuck Close, Charlie Watts, Lee Scratch Perry, Sir Clive Sinclair, Richard H. Kirk, Alan Hawkshaw, Orbital Comics, Lionel Blair, Andrew Barker, Mick Rock, Alvin Lucier, Robbie Shakespear, Chris Achilleos, Michael Nesmith, Richard Rogers, Desmond Tutu, Janice Long,

New Year’s resolution: Use less black in my work

Looking forward to:
The return of Saga comic
The Soundcarriers‘ new album, ‘Wilds’
King Gizzard remix album
A mixer to complete my Quadraphon set up
Collaborations…
EpoDJFood teaser

Tales To Enlighten – finally here and it’s a monster!

TTE cover My copy of Matt King and James Edward Clark‘s ‘Tales To Enlighten’ arrived from the US this week (for more context see here). I’m lost for words at how good this is, comic of 2021 for me for sure – and yes I am biased, but after the years this has been in production they’ve pulled it off and then some. The story is insane (definitely NSFW), the pin up gallery is huge and the quality off the scale. Matt King may be more familiar to Solid Steel fans as King Megatrip who made several guest mixes for the show and was one of the biggest and earliest collectors of tapes from it.

TTE pin up1TTE inside cover TTE pin up2 TTE pin up3 TTE pin up4 TTE prentler TTE shaky

The attention to detail with fake ads, in-jokes and other myth-enhancing material is spot on and the print quality, superb. This is a huge book, 300+ pages and I look forward to diving right in after reading an early PDF copy last year. It has the spirit of underground comix but with the next few decades of comics knowledge thrown in and some serious art chops. I’m also thrilled to have a couple of spots in the book including a genuine endorsement on the back cover (unbeknownst to me, cribbed from an email to Matt after I’d seen the PDF).

TTE back quote TTE mixes
The mixtape cover of religious music to help the Kickstarter along (they didn’t need it, it got funded in six hours!) is also featured in the back. I’ve uploaded the mix to my Mixcloud so it’s easier to find.

TTE mixtapesI’m so pleased for the whole crew after hearing about it for literally years and being teased to the point where I was going, ‘just put the damn thing out!’. There’s a volume 2 in the works too…

TTE thanks 2TTE thanks